Ambidextr Media

“To be an artist is to believe in life.” – Henry Moore.

Creating art has had us Filipinos in a chokehold. Numerous forms of art became a part of the Filipinos’ day-to-day living. It was through songs, dances, literary pieces, and other forms of art that once significantly impacted the lives of the people, especially the Filipinos.

Filipinos had their fair share in the arts through the field of literature. During the pre-colonial era, we had our known songs, poems, riddles, proverbs, and other forms of literature that stood out among all back then, which now are used in the study of Philippine literature.

The same is true when it comes to our national heroes who once risked putting words into paper to fight for the Philippines and its freedom from the colonizers. During the Spanish colonization, we had Jose Rizal’s “Noli Me Tangere” and “El Filibusterismo” — the novels that became part of the education curriculum — and Andres Bonifacio’s “Katapusang Hibik ng Filipinas” and “Pag-Ibig sa Tinubuang Bayan”.

More forms of literature have emerged, significantly contributing to fighting for the country. In the 21st century that we live in, such changes have happened around the country, so much so with literature.

KPOP Alternate Universe (AU)

Fiction comes in many forms to cater to one’s satisfaction. However, as time goes by, new ways of narrating stories have arisen through the years, and this includes the use of social media platforms, such as Twitter, Instagram, Messenger, or iMessage to narrate stories. Tracing the tradition of this new manner of writing, this can be considered under the form of epistolary — a manner in which a story is told through letters. 

This is the modern way of writing epistolary stories. People now call this “Social Media Serye / AU (Alternate Universe)” — a perfect depiction of our contemporary and digital era.

The “Vince & Kath” series was most people’s first encounter with this kind of writing — if not all. This social media serye was posted on Facebook and eventually had the chance to be published and adapted into film with its new title, “Vince and Kath and James“. It was followed by the Wattpad epistolary novels of pilosopotasya entitled “23:11” and its sequel “11/23“. These stories widely incorporated the use of not just messaging applications but social media platforms as well. Just like “Vince & Kath”, these stories had their chance to be published. 

Moving forward through the years, people are now more attuned to using other social media such as X (formerly Twitter). It was in the year 2019 when the Wattpad writer Gwy Saludes posted her new social media serye on X with the title, “By Mistake” — an alternate universe wherein the love story of Kathryn Bernardo (Lily) and Daniel Padilla (Ivor) unfolds after a wrong sent Grab message.

Since then, many people have tried writing and posting their stories, whether on Twitter or Wattpad. Of course, the writers of the Filipino KPop community on X did not let this trend slide. They — I included — had their fair share of consuming and producing social media series.

Those were the good times. Years have passed, and this way of writing still exists and has even extended to the writers of the KPop community on Tiktok. This time, writers post their stories using the songs of artists — OPM and international — and through this, it becomes a win-win situation between the author and the singers by gaining attention and recognition for the stories and authors, songs, and artists.

It was just this year when the TikTok user storiesfromace posted a series of social media AUs that made the readers and CARATS (fandom of SEVENTEEN) gush over the characters portrayed by the members of the KPop group SEVENTEEN while using an OPM artist’s song.

It was the social media story of Carlos Choi — whom others call “Beef Salpicao AU” — posted under the sound of Kylu & Yamada’s “OTW” that had gained a lot of attention because of its storyline, thus giving the used song a chance to be recognized as well. This social media AU gained hundreds of thousands of views for every video of this story, thus catching the singer’s attention and posting a video with a caption jokingly pointing out how his listeners remember beef salpicao when listening to his song.

The song “OTW” has now garnered over a million plays on Spotify.

As years pass, ways of narrating a story will change. Yet, this kind of fusion between the two forms of writing has been one of the extraordinary things that has happened in the arts field. With our love of words — literature and song — and its ways to strike one’s heart, fiction and song is one-of-a-kind work towards escape and recognition.

Art has us in a chokehold — a chokehold we wish never to cease and to continue through generations. Through arts, people find freedom from internal and external factors constraining them from living their lives to the fullest.

As Professor John Keating of the film Dead Poets Society said, “We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion…poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”

Blog by Cyra Aleeza Benosa